Young smokers often kicked by habit

September 03, 2003|By Ginger Malcolm, Special to the Tribune.

Lauren Gentile quit smoking two months ago, and she was sure this time would be different.

She had tried quitting several times before, but it never stuck. "I was so sure that I had quit this time," said Gentile, 23, who started smoking when she was 15. "I had mentally told myself that I wouldn't smoke again, and I didn't want to. I had no desire."

FOR THE RECORD - This story contains corrected material, published Sept. 6, 2003.

She drank a lot of water--at least a gallon a day--to curb her cravings. And she did well until her Ukrainian Village apartment was broken into and, under the stress, she started up again.

Research is finding that she's not alone. Faced with ongoing stress in the workplace and at home, an increasing number of young women smokers are finding it harder to quit.

Nationwide one-quarter of women ages 16 to 24 smoke, according to a recent report issued by the American Legacy Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization, which was established in 1999 to educate consumers about the hazards of smoking as a result of the tobacco industry settlement with 46 states.

The survey, which is one of the first of its kind to look at young women's smoking habits, found that 83 percent of female smokers ages 16 to 24 believe they could quit smoking if they wanted to. But of the 60 percent who tried in the past year, only 3 percent were successful.

Despite recent declines in tobacco use overall, the number of young women who continue to smoke alarms health officials.

"Twenty-five percent of young women are still smoking and that's bad news. I have no other words for it," said Lyndon Haviland, chief operating officer of the American Legacy Foundation. "That means 4.5 million young women are smoking. And the depressing fact is that 83 percent believe that they would be able to quit if they wanted to, but the statistics don't support that. When people go to quit, it's a lot more difficult than they think it will be."

Although most young women know the adverse health effects smoking can cause, researchers say they underestimate how it can directly impact them and lead to heart disease, stroke and cancer. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death among women--an estimated 178,000 Amercian women will die from tobacco-related disease this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While many young women acknowledge these risks, they say they do not intend to quit until they graduate from college or become pregnant with their first child.

But health experts are saying it might not be that easy. Overall, one in five women in the U.S. smokes, and an estimated 90 percent of them started smoking before the age of 18, according to the CDC. Whether they started out to experiment or because they wanted to fit in, young adults are discovering that stopping is much more difficult than they thought it would be.

"People try to quit on their own and they can't," said Laura Parise, an addiction psychiatrist and medical director of the Doreen E. Chapman Center for Substance Abuse at Highland Park Hospital (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). "Most people who come to me have tried several times to quit unsuccessfully. They need the support of a peer group or treatment to help them fight the addiction."

Addiction specialists say it takes a strong social network and reinforcement to break a smoking habit. Most smokers try to quit between eight and 11 times before they are successful, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"It's a hard thing to do, but I'm trying. It's hard because a lot of my friends still smoke and that doesn't make it easy," said Sarah Hauser, 26, who has tried to quit smoking unsuccessfully four times since college. She tried again about four months ago. "Every one of my college girlfriends smoked. I don't know what it is. Maybe there is more stress today with women balancing careers and school."

Research shows that women have a tougher time quitting than men, and often stress plays a major role in why females continue to smoke. Young women claim that smoking relaxes them and makes it easier to juggle the complexities of families, households and careers.

"Women smoke for different reasons than men," said Janet Williams, a board member for the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago and former director of tobacco prevention and control for the Cook County Department of Public Health. "It's easier for men to quit. Men seem to smoke more in pleasurable situations, and women smoke to relieve stress or maintain weight. Is this the best way to lose weight? No, but women think it is.

"It's harder for women to quit because they would be giving up their best coping mechanism. When you talk to women about quitting, you have to ask them how are you going to cope without the cigarette."

When you couple stress with the glamorous, sexy images often equated with smoking, the odds climb even higher, Haviland said.